


At Moments After

by carolinecrane



Series: down is where we came from [24]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-21
Updated: 2010-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-12 19:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there's car talk, discussion of the future, and Puck on his best behavior.  Yet somehow, dinner at the Hummel household still doesn't go exactly as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Moments After

Bringing up the 'no sex' rule in front of Finn almost gets Puck uninvited to dinner.

Technically Kurt can't uninvite him, since he doesn't live in his dad's house anymore, but it's not like Puck would show up if Kurt was really that pissed. Lucky for him, Kurt can't stand the the thought of a whole night without Puck and they both know it, so instead of getting banished Kurt makes him promise to be on his best behavior, and in return Kurt promises to blue ball him for the rest of his natural life if Puck embarrasses him in front of his father.

Which, whatever, Puck knows how to talk to Burt. It's not like he's going to bring up their sex life to Kurt's _dad_ , even if he doesn't see what the big deal is. Finn, on the other hand...totally different story.

Finn was his boy, back in the day, and he's Kurt's stepbrother, and that commands a certain amount of loyalty. So if Puck can help him get over his hang-ups about the whole gay sex thing by talking about it, it's a sacrifice he's willing to make. Plus, their sex life is totally hot, and he doesn't mind rubbing that in Finn's face every chance he gets.

But he knows better than to bring it up at the dinner table with Burt and Mrs. H sitting right there, so he keeps his mouth shut and watches Will brag about Finn to his own fucking parents, going on and on about how great he is at casting and directing or whatever, like he carved Finn out of wood with his own two hands and sweet-talked the fucking Blue Fairy into making him a real boy.

And Finn's just sitting there lapping it up like nobody's ever paid him a compliment before, the tips of his ears burning and interrupting every so often to tell Will he hung the moon, basically. It's _pathetic_ how into each other they are, and if they're not already getting horizontal every chance they get, Puck's pretty sure there's no hope for them.

Every so often he looks over at Quinn, and the few times he catches her eye she just rolls her eyes at him and goes back to pushing food around her plate. And they've talked about this, so Puck knows she's not hanging on to any hope of Finn crawling back to her or anything. In fact, she's mentioned more than once that she wishes he'd just get over himself and get on with his life already, but she doesn't look that thrilled about having to witness it.

He feels kind of bad about that, seeing as it's his fault and all. But it's not like he knew Finn was planning to bring her around when he invited Schue to dinner. He figures Finn's probably just trying to keep his mom off his case by stringing Quinn along, which is a bullshit thing to do anyway, so the sooner he gets over himself and embraces the gay, the happier everybody will be.

"So how's that Camaro coming along?" Burt asks from the other end of the table, and Puck watches Will and Finn turn the exact same shade of red.

"Okay," Finn says a second before Will says, "There's still a lot to do, but I think we're close to getting her running again."

Kurt makes a noise that sounds a lot like a snort, but when Puck glances to his right Kurt's staring into his water glass like he's expecting it to talk back.

"Oh, yeah? What's the problem?" Burt asks, waving off Mrs. H's protest of 'no shop talk at the table'.

Will glances at Finn, but he's blushing even harder now, and seriously, Puck's starting to think there's something wrong with this entire family. He's staring at his plate and kinda looking up at Will every so often like he's waiting to get busted for something, and Puck doesn't have a clue what the fuck's going on, so he passes the time wondering if Will would be into the whole teacher/student roleplay, or if that would be too creepy, considering.

Personally, Puck thinks it might help them move things along, get them back on familiar territory. Maybe he'll send Schue a message on Facebook once they're back in L.A.

"At first I thought the fuel pressure was the problem," Will's saying, still looking at Finn like he's waiting for him to jump in with his expert opinion, "but we replaced the whole fuel injection system and she's still not accelerating right."

"What do you think, son?"

Puck figures Burt's talking to Finn, like this is some sort of test to see how much he's learned hanging around the shop a few hours a week. But Finn's just sitting there with his mouth sort of open, Will on one side of him and Quinn on the other, and it doesn't look like he's thinking much of anything.

"If the fuel sensor's not faulty, I'd replace the timing belt next. It could be the carburetor too, I suppose. Just pray it's not your entire transmission."

At the sound of Kurt's voice Puck's head whips around fast enough to make him feel like he did that time he smashed his mom's Volvo into the Circle K.

"You know how to change a timing belt?"

"My father's a mechanic," Kurt says, and Puck's not stupid, so he hears the 'duh'. Which...fair enough, except that Kurt's mentioned the shop like a million times since they got together, and he's never once said that he used to _work_ there.

And that's just wrong, because Kurt's lips are curving around words like 'carburetor' and 'fuel sensor', and suddenly Puck's discovered a whole new level of hot. He wants to say so, wants to grip the back of Kurt's neck and pull him close and demand Kurt whisper about transmissions in his ear while Puck does things to him that really would give Burt a heart attack. Instead he just reaches under the table where nobody can see and rests a hand on Kurt's thigh, smirking when Kurt jumps in his chair and catches Puck's hand in his own.

"So you could work on my bike?"

"Motorcycles have completely different engines than cars. It's a different specialty," Kurt answers, and wow, even that's kind of hot.

"But if you got yourself a classic like Will here, Kurt could keep her running like a dream," Burt says, pride clear in his voice and Puck looks away from Kurt long enough to grin at Burt. "I've never seen anybody take an engine apart like this kid. He's like a surgeon."

"Yes, in my vast spare time I'd be happy to volunteer as your personal mechanic," Kurt says, rolling his eyes, but his cheeks are pink and Puck can tell he's digging the attention. "It's just because my hands are small. Easier to reach into all those little spaces."

He drives his point home by wiggling the fingers still clamped over Puck's, then he lets go and reaches for his water glass, but Puck doesn't pull his hand away from Kurt's thigh. He doesn't try to cop a feel or anything, because he values his life, and now that he knows Kurt knows his way around fuel lines and stuff, he figures he'd better stay on Kurt's good side so he doesn't end up a smear on the 405 someday when Kurt decides he's had enough.

At least now he knows why Kurt looked like he swallowed a lemon when he first heard about Finn working on Will's car. They've got that whole competition thing going for Burt's affection, and Puck gets _why_ , because Finn's probably a little closer to the kid he expected when Kurt was born.

But it's pretty obvious from the way Burt talks about Kurt that he's got no complaints, and anyway, from the sounds of it Kurt could run circles around Finn in the shop. Puck laughs at the thought, because seriously, who would have seen that coming? He squeezes Kurt's thigh before he lets go, sliding his arm around the back of Kurt's chair and glancing down the table toward Finn and Will.

Finn's still blushing like he knows as well as everybody else at the table -- except Will, apparently -- that he's got nothing on Kurt. Meanwhile Will's just grinning like...well, like Schue, and it would be kind of sad how clueless he is, except Puck figures he's just blinded by love or whatever.

"Let me get some of these dishes out of the way and I'll start some coffee to go with dessert," Carole says. She stands up and pushes back her chair, and right away Quinn hops up too as everybody else starts passing plates down. Kurt starts to get up to help, but before he can grab the stack of plates closest to him, Burt's reaching for it.

"I've got it. You stay and visit with Mr. Schuester and your brother," Burt says.

"It's Will," Schue calls after him, but if Burt hears him he doesn't acknowledge it. And Puck feels for him and all, but it's tough for him to stop thinking of Schue as their teacher, so it's probably pretty weird for Burt too.

"So how's Glee going?" Puck asks, mostly because nobody else is saying anything. "You guys going to Nationals this year?"

"We have to make it through Regionals first, but I think we've got a pretty good shot," Will says. Puck can hear the pride in his voice; he remembers when Will talked that way about them, and yeah, it's definitely weird to think of him and Finn now. But they've been out of high school for a long time and Finn hasn't gotten over it, so Puck figures he has to at least try it out, or he'll spend the rest of his life kicking his own ass.

For awhile Will just sits there grinning at them, glancing over at Finn every now and then before he turns back to grin at Puck and Kurt some more.

"Wow, you guys. Of all the people I thought would end up together. I mean, I thought Sam might come out eventually, but not you, Puck. And Finn tells me you're getting married?"

"Yeah," Puck answers a beat before Kurt says, "What on earth gave you that idea?"

As soon as he registers Kurt's words Puck looks at him, but Kurt's busy staring at Finn like if he just _looks_ hard enough Finn will drop dead. Finn's staring right back, but mostly he looks kind of like he wishes he _were_ dead.

"Puck told me," Finn says, and his face is so red Puck would be a little worried if he weren't too busy wondering why the hell Kurt looks so pissed. "Like...a month ago. He said you two were going to get gay married, and then we'd be family, so we might as well reconnect."

And Puck doesn't really remember what he said, exactly, because he was still pretty blissed out from an afternoon of fantastic sex at the time, but that sounds about right, so he doesn't argue.

"Why," Kurt says, turning toward Puck in slow motion and moving his mouth without saying anything, like he's trying out the feel of the words before he commits to them. Then he swallows and crosses his arms over his chest, _hard_ , and Puck starts to think something's not right here. "Why would you say such a thing?"

"Because it's true," he answers, and he wants to, but he doesn't add the 'duh' either. "What the fuck, babe?"

Kurt's flushed and his eyes are narrowed and Puck knows that look, knows what's coming before Kurt even says anything, but he doesn't _get_ it. Because they've talked about this, and Puck's made it pretty goddamn clear that he's down with the for betters and worses and richers and poorers and the whole fucking gay package. Sure, they haven't gotten around to picking out china patterns or anything, but he's pretty sure the 'til death' part of their relationship was implied.

"You're not seriously asking me that. You've been going around telling...oh my God, you really did tell my father we were getting married, didn't you?"

And it's not like he's going to deny it, but he doesn't really want to say it out _loud_ , not when Kurt's looking at him like he just figured out Puck murdered Santa Claus. "So...what, all of a sudden you don't want to gay marry me?"

Kurt doesn't answer him right away. Instead he huffs out an impatient breath and glances across the table to where Finn and Will are watching the whole scene play out. And Puck could give a goddamn who's watching, but he lets Kurt drag him out of his chair and past the kitchen door, where Puck barely registers Kurt's folks and Quinn staring after them as Kurt drags him into the hallway.

"This isn't funny," Kurt hisses when they're alone, turning on Puck to flash furious blue eyes at him, and Puck would think it was hot if he wasn't busy trying to figure out if they're breaking up or what.

"I'm not fucking laughing."

"No, of course not, you're too busy telling everyone in my family that we're getting _married_ without bothering to consult me first. Don't you think we should have discussed this?"

"What are you talking about?" Puck says, and now he _does_ feel like laughing, because seriously. "We _have_ talked about it. I told you, this is it for me. Did you think I said that just to get into your pants?"

When Kurt blushes this time Puck can tell that yeah, that's pretty much exactly what he thought. And okay, maybe it's partly his fault, because he's never actually _asked_ if Kurt wants to get gay married. He just figured Kurt believed him when Puck said he didn't want anybody else. He's not positive or anything, but he's pretty sure when you tell a guy there's nobody else for you, and he keeps making out with you anyway, that's implied consent or whatever.

"We haven't talked about this," Kurt says, and he's still blushing, but now he looks a little unsure, like maybe he got distracted and missed a conversation somehow. And granted, Puck can be pretty distracting, but still. "I think I'd remember being proposed to."

"Fine, I'm sorry, okay?" Puck lets out a frustrated breath and closes his eyes for a second, then he opens them again and grips Kurt's shoulders. "Kurt, will you gay marry me?"

He expects a surprised laugh, maybe, or a little smile that Kurt has to fight to hide. He expects pursed lips and an eye roll before Kurt says that yes, okay, since he asked nicely and all, they can get married after all.

What he doesn't expect is for Kurt to twist out of his grip, his whole face burning now and his arms crossed so tight over his chest that Puck's a little scared he's going to break something they might need later.

"No, I will not marry you," he whispers, and for the first time since this started, Puck's glad nobody in Kurt's family is sticking their nose in. "God, you can't even say it right."

"What?"

"You keep saying 'gay married', like it's different from a real marriage. It's not a joke, Puck. You can't just get 'gay married' and then when you're tired of it, forget it and go back to your life. We can't even get married in California, which means we can't get divorced there, either."

"So what?" Puck says, and now he's past confused and straight into pissed. "Why the fuck are you talking about getting divorced? I don't want to get fucking divorced."

Kurt's staring at him like he's not really sure what language Puck's speaking. And that's nothing new, but this is kind of important, and when Kurt keeps staring at him and not saying anything, Puck shakes his head and takes a step forward.

"So do you want to marry me or what?"

He gives Kurt a full minute to answer him. It feels more like a year, standing there watching Kurt's eyes go all watery and his mouth open and then close again. After Kurt's third stab at a fish impression Puck gets the point, though, and he sucks in a harsh breath and runs a hand over his face.

"Fuck it," he says, then he turns around and grabs his jacket off the rack by the front door.

"Where are you going?" he hears Kurt call after him, but he doesn't even turn around before he's pulling the door open and taking the front steps two at a time.


End file.
